The Short End of the Stick
by andiworkinabuttonfactory
Summary: They broke their stick into six pieces. Ron often wondered which of their children got the shortest piece.
1. The Beginning

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><p><strong>The Short End of the Stick<strong>

_"They broke their stick into six pieces. Ron often wondered which of their children got the shortest piece."_

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><p>It was never supposed to be like this. The way it was.<p>

Ron was born into a family of many children, Hermione was born into a family of only one.

So, when the time came to have a family of their own, they were to compromise.

While he loved his family fiercely, Ron did not want his children feeling any of the same emotions he had – unimportant, picked upon, in the shadows.

And Hermione, the same thing – lonely, friendless, in the constant spotlight of her parents.

Now, of course, both of them as children were loved. But Ron believed he could have used a bit more love. Hermione, possibly a bit less.

The most logical explanation would be to have a couple of children. Two, maybe three. It would have been the perfect amount, for everyone involved. There would be no lonely only child nor would there be a forgotten child in the midst of a pack.

However.

The planned two children turned nearly immediately into three, not even a full year after the birth of their first son. "Maybe just one more," gave a fourth two years after that, and then, when the "just one more" child was three, a fifth pregnancy yielded a sixth child, unintentional two times over.

Each with matching red locks of hair in some spectacular feat in genetics, most with brown eyes (only two with blue), and only one without the slightest hint of their mother's curls (although none of them, save for the younger boy, got the full brunt of her hair texture. For that, she was grateful.)

More than anything else, it scared Ron. Which one would be the left out one? The quietest, the smallest, the ones born by accident? The ones who were loud or bossy? The ones born close together, or one of the twins? One of the girls? The boys? The ones who surely would not be in Gryffindor when the time came to go to Hogwarts?

He noticed that there was a pecking order to the children, entirely naturally they fell in an order of power and influence over and under one another. He couldn't do anything about it, but still, it made Ron sad.

It was all too much.

Now, of course it was different than when he was growing up. Ron alone made more money in a year than what his own father made in ten, never mind counting Hermione. The children never needed to worry about needing something or having to use hand-me-down robes, or to wonder if they would wind up being able to afford such-and-such item that year.

But there were still so many of them.

Ron sometimes mixed them up. Called them by the wrong name, forgot who liked which thing, which child was supposed to do what at what time. He was ashamed by it. Sometimes they all seemed like they were the same person, in varying heights and attitudes and decibel levels. Sometimes, despite an eight year difference between the eldest and the youngest, they all even seemed the same age.

He didn't want his children to be full of insecurities. He didn't want any one of them to have any reason to think another child was better. He didn't want a child to fall in the shadows. He didn't want any of them to be jealous of any of their siblings.

Ron believed he was the child who got the shortest end of the sick in his family.

He and Hermione broke their stick into six pieces, trying to best they could to make them equal sizes. Even so, Ron often wondered which of his children got the shortest piece.

Or maybe, a sixth of the stick wasn't enough for any of them.

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><p>.<p>

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><p><strong>AN: There will be one chapter for each child, to further get into their characters. I am afraid Ron may turn out to be a wee bit OOC, but I'm hoping you'll be able to see his side of the story, why he would be thinking things that he is going to think. If you liked it, an introductory chapter though it may be, please drop a review! **


	2. Rosie Pose

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><p><strong><strong>Rosie Pose <strong>**

Rose Winifred Weasley. June 2006.

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><p>Ron wouldn't be shocked if it were Rose who felt like she was given the shortest piece of the stick.<p>

It was Rose who was born first of her family, but she was overshadowed by her cousin from the get-go.

Albus Severus Potter, born merely four days prior to Rose herself and with a much greater to-do: nearly three months too early, and much to the Healers' contempt, Ginny had waited too long after things started to go awry to fix it. They just had to give it time.

Ginny nearly died, Albus nearly died, there were plenty of tears and worried, sleepless nights. The stuffy smell of St. Mungo's lingered on nearly every member of the Weasley clan for quite a long time afterwards, so much so that Ron came to associate it with family and continued to for ages.

Meanwhile, in the hustle and bustle of giving baby Albus potions and warmth to help him grow and hoping he would become stable and strong enough to accept said potions, little Rose Winifred (after, of course, Fred) Weasley came quietly and methodically (on her very due date precisely) into the world. Average length, average weight, and scored perfectly on the initial health examinations.

("Hear that Rosie Pose?" her father whispered to the infant, "Your very first A.")

She was perfect, and they were oh so very happy, but in the hubbub, she was barely noticed.

"It's like they don't even care!"

"Your sister's child is dying!" Hermione scolded her husband, with just the slightest tone of sorrow in her voice, "Be happy that ours is not."

Ron then began to worry for the child in a different way. That poor, too-small Albus would not live, and Rose would forever have to associate her birth with the death of her cousin.

It was lucky, then, that Albus grew to be quite a robust child, and both of them were the center of attention, equally, with the Weasleys for quite a long time after.

It took a while for Ron to realize, but maybe it was even a blessing. Rose would always have a friend.

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><p>She wasn't very loud. Compared to the other children. There were many stark contrasts between Rose and the others.<p>

She didn't scream for attention, nor did she throw tantrums, nor did she punch or bite or hit. Not even in retaliation.

(She did, however, fight with words quite well. She could sting even her own parents.)

Above all else, she liked things to be precise. She did not have time for the petty rows of her siblings.

She meticulously organized her bedroom: the books she read on their shelves first by genre (school reading, pleasure, research, and so on) and then in alphabetical order, her clothes arranged by season and then by colors of the rainbow, her toys by biggest to smallest.

She would think and reflect and be quite upset nearly every night trying to determine what stuffed animals were worthy to sleep in bed with her. Often she would be found an hour after her bedtime kneeling next to her bed, tearfully trying to determine which one needed the most love.

(She didn't want any of them to feel left out, she often told her father. Because of this excuse, he never reprimanded her for staying up late. He didn't want them to feel left out, either.)

Her parents respected her and loved her for it, but never quite understood her exact system of organization. Especially Ron. He tried so hard to keep things the way she liked it, but sometimes a breach in the system was inevitable.

One of the younger children would move things around, looking for a lost toy. Her mother needed a book, and pulled it off the shelf. One of the other children ran out of clean socks and Rose's drawer was full, and there was no time to wait for the wash to be done; another was missing a jumper that might have accidentally been put into Rose's closet.

She noticed it all, and took each violation of her organization as a violation of her person. None of the children ever really seemed to care. They all teased her for it, thinking she was just a nutter for it, and despite all that she tried to do to redeem herself, it crushed her. Every time.

It crushed Ron as well. Every time.

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><p>Even if Rose did not feel inferior because of Albus, or because she didn't always have a voice amidst her siblings, she could become to feel inferior because of Hogwarts, most definitely.<p>

James, of course, was a Gryffindor through and through. When the sorting hat was placed on the head of Albus Severus, he proudly proclaimed that he would like to be in Gryffindor, and the hat complied.

For Rose, however, the hat had screamed "RAVENCLAW!" nearly the moment it hit her head.

The table of children clad in bronze and blue stood up and cheered for the new member of their house, but she was not nearly as proud as they all seemed to be.

Ron had said, jokingly, to witty little Rose before the Hogwarts Express left from Kings Cross that he would disinherit her if she wasn't a Gryffindor. Despite any claims that he was joking, and reassurance from her mother and aunt, she knew he meant it, even if only a little.

(He hadn't meant to offend her. He hadn't even thought at the time that it could have. He didn't even think of the possibility.)

It took almost a month for Rosie to perk up the courage to tell her parents what house she was in, and by that time Albus and James had already mentioned it a dozen times in passing. And of course, they were proud of her. She just didn't immediately expect it.

Ron sat her down once, the Christmas of her first year at a holiday party filled with Gryffindors, and told her that he was proud to have her as a Ravenclaw. That she was intelligent, and creative, and always made him laugh at her wit and all the clever things she had to say to him. That all these things meant that she was perfect for the house. And that there was no shame in being something other than a Gryffindor.

But Ron knew that she knew all past Weasleys were Gryffindors, and he knew she was ashamed.

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><p>.<p>

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><p><strong>AN: This whole two-chapters-in-one-day thing is a rarity. Don't expect it again. I just wanted to get out more of a "real" chapter. Thank you SO much for the reviews, I really appreciate it. They're a lot of what made me post another chapter today.  
><strong>

**I'm saying at least five reviews on this chapter to get me to put up the next one in short order. I know, how egotist of me, but, it certainly gives a self esteem boost. ****I'm using the high I get writing on FF to get myself going writing summer papers and reading literature for school and whatnot. But anyway, here's Rosie. Hope you liked her. **

**Also, this is Ron's story. I'm sure that Hermione would have many insecurities of her own revolving raising her children, but this is told through the eyes of Ron. **

**One more thing: Check out the picture posted through the link on my profile. That picture was the inspiration for this story. I won't give all the names and such away yet, but Rosie is the second from the left. Hugo, who is next in the story, is probably rather easily identifiable.  
><strong>


	3. Hugo

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><p><strong><strong>Hugo <strong>**

Hugo Romulus Weasley. October 2007.

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><p>Hugo always felt like he should be in charge of someone, or that he needed to help someone. Ron knew it was a sign of him feeling inferior. If he didn't boss someone around, maybe he would break.<p>

The child had plenty of insecurities – possibly he got the short end of the stick.

Hugo Romulus (named for dear Remus) was born the first out of a string of three births – he in October, followed by Ginny and Harry's daughter six months later, and his own sister four months after that.

The only boy out of the three, and with Al and James being so much older and wanting little to do with his child antics, it would be silly to surmise that he didn't feel left out. Always stuck with the girls.

(Ron wondered, fleetingly from time to time, if his wife had ever had similar feelings to that during all of her moments at Hogwarts, always with the boys. He always made a mental note to bring it up sometime, and then somehow never remembered.)

Although he had the girls to play with, he often did not want to play with them. They had their own games to play and did not want to follow the rules he put up when he played with them.

His games were always quite grandiose. It isn't that he always wanted to win, exactly, but he wanted to feel like the hero. He entirely did not mind if the victory in the end went to one of the others, as long as he felt as if he accomplished something. He did not necessarily want to catch the snitch or score the winning goal, but rather keep the goals safe from opponents.

The girls, however, did not understand that, and just told him he was bossy.

He often played by himself, or just watched the others play. He wasn't dissimilar from his older sister or Al, but they never wanted to include him, since he was so much littler, and way too bossy. He was quiet compared to Lily and Ruby, who always played together extremely well, and they never wanted to play according to his rules.

According to him, though, he liked to watch the others. He liked to make sure everyone was safe. And anyway, he liked being in charge. If they didn't want to play his games, it was probably better off they didn't play with him at all.

This did worry Ron slightly. Since he was constantly lumped with the two girls, that obviously meant that he would be compared to them. He was not as outright boisterous as the two of them, nor as friendly, nor the same kind playful. The girls had a huge amount more friends than he did. He wondered if the child ever wished he could make friends like that.

Mostly he wondered why Hugo felt as if he needed to be the knight in shining armour, always.

Probably because he wanted a way to earn the attention that was always on the others.

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><p>Hugo wasn't the loudest of the children, but he tried to be.<p>

He knew his parents sometimes focused way more on the little ones who needed more of a watchful eye, or the ones who were loud, or the one who was always cooped up in her room organizing things.

In the same way, he also realized that sometimes one of his parents would need to focus so much on one child (it didn't matter which one. It varied. There was always a special circumstance), that all of the others would be left behind, Hugo included.

He often wanted to take charge.

He took it upon himself to take care of his siblings, and by extension his cousins, and his entire family. He dutifully protected the younger ones from name calling and helped put a stopper in their rows.

He protected his second-to-smallest sister from the many things she feared. Ron would often glance in his room in the morning and find her sleeping in his bed. Whether or not it was because the girl did not feel as if she could go to her parents afraid or because Hugo had keenly noticed right away that she was in distress, it was unclear.

Once, all of the girls were out with Ron on a special trip to Diagon Alley. Despite their love for their two brothers, the girls coveted time alone with their daddy. Taking all four of them out at once was often the best Ron could do.

Hermione had fallen quite ill while they were out (she had fainted with a fever, and Hugo could not figure out how to wake her up), and Hugo had floo'd for help all on his very own, making sure his mummy and his smaller brother were safe the entire time.

By the time Ron even knew what was going on, Hermione had already been checked into St. Mungos, and the boy had even gotten Ginny and Harry to come watch after him and his brother.

Ron had never been so proud of his son's bravery, but he barely had time to notice it, as his wife was so very ill. He regretted that for a long time afterwards, that no one made a bigger deal out of the boy saving his mother, and for being so brave and so smart.

Hugo did so much protecting that Ron often wondered if the child thought no one was there to protect him.

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><p>The boy was sorted to be a Gryffindor without much question, but often wondered if he were a true one.<p>

This insecurity, without a doubt, came from his relatives, the gaggle of crooning Weasley Gryffindors with enticing stories of their bravery, daring, nerve, and chivalry.

He just didn't feel as if he fit in.

Much of his woefulness came because of his little sister, who, instead of staying below him like the age difference should have naturally predestined, quickly outshined him. Just by chance of the months they were born in (Hugo, just after the 11-by-September-first date; his sister, just before), they started Hogwarts in the same year.

"Why couldn't I have been born just two months earlier?" he complained, a few times, "Or Ruby a month later?"

When his parents didn't have a good answer for him, he simply sulked.

"Rosie's smarter than me, but she's two years older, that's to be expected. And she's not a Gryffindor. I'm almost a year older than Ruby is, and she's at the top of our year. Why does she have to be better than me at everything? She's a much better Gryffindor than I am. I shouldn't be a Gryffindor at all."

The thing was, however, he was a true Gryffindor. He just didn't realize it.

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><p>.<p>

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><p><strong>AN: Thanks to those of you who reviewed. I hoped for more, but maybe this time, yeah? Please? **

**Ruby (the first OC) is next.  
><strong>


	4. Ruby Jean

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><p><strong>Ruby Jean<strong>

Ruby Jean Weasley. August 2008.

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><p>Ron hated to admit it, and it made him feel sick to know it, but his third child was at the top of the pecking order of his brood.<p>

She wasn't the biggest nor the smallest, not the smartest, not even the loudest (that title was reserved for her youngest sister), but she was (and Ron hated to know this too): the meanest.

The girl sometimes reminded her of Fred and George. If any of his children did, it was certainly her. She was audacious, confident, bold. Not afraid to speak her mind. She teased and pranked and joked her family and friends and bystanders alike. Sometimes they found it to be of good nature, other times it was sorely over the top.

Ron worried that her siblings would be afraid of her.

Once, when she had mixed together a few of the potion ingredients found in their little cupboard organized much like the spices and cooking ingredients were, she created a substance that melted all the hair on Hugo's head off (it turned into the strangest orange goop. Ron was terrified when he saw it).

The girl could not dictate to Hermione exactly what method she used to create the potion, so she couldn't repeat it to try to figure out what would reverse the damage. It took months for him to look normal again.

Another time, while playing a silly prank on her older sister, Ruby accidentally shattered Rose's Remembrall (given to her by Ron to help ease her anxiety when going off to school). Ruby tried to fix it, and, very upset with herself, gave the broken bits to Hermione to have her try to mend them back together. It could not be done. Ruby helped pay for Rose to get a new one, but it was not the same to her. Rose did not speak to her sister for ages.

Ruby was never outright wracked with guilt, and that sometimes worried Ron. He and Hermione tried to discipline her, but she often just found it funny.

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><p>It was from her infancy that the differences between her and her two older siblings were obvious.<p>

She was louder than the two of them; that was for sure.

She was also needier than the two of them. She hardly could go a few minutes alone without screaming for someone to come see her. She needed more entertainment, more cuddling, more love.

Hugo and Rose were equally mellow – both with needs and foibles and quirks, but mellower. They didn't crave attention in the amount that Ruby did. Sometimes it made Ron wonder if they gave Ruby too much. (Maybe even, Ruby had the longest end of the stick. Would that be just as bad as having the short end? Were they enabling her superiority by giving her so much more attention?)

She didn't much fight with her siblings, but she teased them. She was cruel with her teasing (and Ron thought she knew it). She teased them on the way they looked, the way they talked, the grades they earned in school, the way they played games.

Ron was worried that the girl would be a Slytherin. Not for himself (partially for himself), but for her. He wondered how she would take it if the teasing was suddenly turned onto her.

But she wasn't a Slytherin, she never really had a chance at being one, and the sorting hat dubbed her a Gryffindor. She wore the gold and scarlet with more pride than Ron had ever seen.

And moments before her, her brother had also been named a Gryffindor. She was happy for him – really, she was – but teased him just the same. She always did better than he did. She had a certain knack for Potions, a penchant for Transfiguration, a love of Charms, and a deep fascination for Defense Against the Dark Arts. She had all of these classes with Hugo and she beat him in all of them.

Every time she was told not to tease, she would reply innocently saying that, "I'm not teasing, only joking!"

And she wasn't lying.

Above and beyond her teasing, she was silly. She was goofy. She could have made a stone statue laugh. (She did once, actually. An enchanted one.) She was often a mood lifter in the household. When she wasn't getting into trouble, or making one of her siblings cry, she made them laugh.

The two sides of the girl juxtaposed seemed admittedly strange.

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><p>It was hard to find Ruby's insecurities. Ron reasoned that this was because she kept that buried deeper inside of her.<p>

But maybe everything she did – prank, tease, joke - were all based upon insecurities. Maybe she just wanted to be noticed in the midst of her family. Maybe trying to be better than the others was the only way she knew how.

Ron also knew that she sometimes felt like she needed to be the one to make everyone else laugh. Whenever the family as a whole was sad for any reason, she'd always pipe up with jokes or clever remarks just to see if she could get everyone to cheer up.

It was easy for her to make them happy, and it was easy for her to make them unhappy.

It was strange to have his mood often so heavily relied on his child. He wondered if Ruby felt pressure from it. As if it were her job.

It was blatantly obvious that Ruby was not a planned child. Hugo was still a wrinkly practically-newborn without distinct sleep/wake cycles and lacking awareness of his own hands and feet when Ruby was conceived. Her first check up after having her son, and Hermione was already pregnant.

She came home from the appointment in tears, and in-between sobs told her husband that she "Wanted another one, just not now. It's just so soon."

He had to console her, and tell her that everything was going to be alright, and that it didn't matter how close together they were, and another baby would be wonderful. He had to do all these things to make it okay, even though he was just as worried as she was. He hadn't wanted another baby just yet either. He wasn't sure if he wanted another one at all.

What was worse than random people wondering if the two were twins (with their matching heads of hair and, eventually, similar sizes), and what was worse than those who assumed that the child had been an accident (the ones who stared and whispered, and asked just how many months they were apart with wavering voices), and what was worse than those who realized that that meant Ron and Hermione had had sex nearly immediately after Hugo was born (and the awkward comments that ensued) was this:

Ruby knew she hadn't been born on purpose. She knew, and she understood. She never spoke of it.

Ron knew what it felt like to be born a different gender than desired. He didn't, however, know what it felt like to know his parents hadn't even wanted another baby. He didn't know what it felt like not to be wanted at all.

But Ruby did.

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><p>.<p>

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><p><strong>AN: Sorry for the slight delay, all. Thanks for all the praise on the last chapter. Really, really appreciate it. More? Please?  
><strong>

**"Ettie" is up next.  
><strong>


	5. Etta

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><p><strong>Etta<strong>

Harriet Ginevra Weasley. July 2010.

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><p>If his third child was at the top of the pecking order, it was obvious that his fourth child was at the bottom. It was heart breaking. Certainly little Ettie got the shortest end of the stick.<p>

She was named after his best friend and his only sister, on a whim, as she was born on Harry's birthday. She was named for two of the most famous people of the generation. It seemed like such a grand idea at the time, looking at the sweet little girl, her red curls on her head, the eyes she seemed to have gotten straight from Ginny.

It was brilliant. It would make her strong, and brave, and just was wonderful as his best friend and his only sister had been.

But as the girl grew up, perpetually under the shadow of the famous names, it was obvious that she was no Ginny and no Harry.

Ron hated it, as the idea become stronger that the girl was nothing like her namesakes. How could he have done that to her? How could that have been fair?

The girl was scared, to say it simply. A boggart jumping out of a cupboard wouldn't even be able to decide what to morph into. It simply could pick anything, and she would be frightened.

A girl after her father's own heart, she feared spiders. And bugs all alike. She feared the dark. She feared most animals. She feared being yelled at. She feared her older sister for being so crude and lewd.

The worst was this: she feared magic.

The girl certainly was magical, and for this Ron was grateful. If any of the personalities of his children would fit that of a poor, forgotten squib, it would be Harriet. She could easily be forgotten. Swept away by the hustle and bustle of her siblings.

It was true that she was magical, but before her powers were controlled, they were used to her disadvantage. Each time she feared something, her untamed magic made the fear grow bigger or stronger. She did not learn how to control it, as some of her siblings were able to do quite well before they even stepped foot on the Hogwarts express. And this terrified her.

The only person to be able to calm her down in a time where her magic exacerbated an already large fear, was her older brother. More often than not, Hugo would sleep in her bed with her, or pull his little sister into his own bed. Everything was scary to the child, but Hugo made it less.

Her parents didn't know how to calm her down, to ease the tears and the exploding magic. Eventually, she stopped asking them for help at all.

They stopped calling her by her given name, and resorted to nicknames that sounded nothing like her namesakes. Etta. Ettie. Ette. They needed to make sure she was her own person. But mostly, that she wasn't buried by the magically gifted people she was named after.

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><p>Etta's best quality was her friendliness. She was more polite than any child he had ever see, and much more polite than any of his other children. He didn't understand, really, how she even learned it. He taught the children all the same how to be respectful and polite and mind other people. She, however, took it to heart.<p>

It was a quality that Ron thought could get her into trouble.

"Ettie, dear, you don't have to do everything people tell you to do, darling. You're allowed to say no, sweetheart, sometimes, if you really feel like saying no."

He felt like sometimes he needed to talk circles around her, fill the comments with praise in order for her feelings to not be broken. They were shattered so frequently, and he did not know how to put them together.

"I'm just trying to be nice," the girl would say, her head down, always refusing to meet the eye of her father.

Ron always worried that something had happened to her to make her so weak. So unable to feel any bravery, having to use other people's (Hugo's) bravery in order to ever feel the slightest bit unafraid. He wondered how inferior she felt. He knew she didn't think highly of herself, not like some of the other children felt about themselves, and he had no idea how to create self confidence. He had no idea how he could raise multiple children at the same time in the same ways, and have one end up like Ruby and one end up like Ettie.

Even though she was sweet, she had her moments, as all children do. Her feelings perpetually being hurt came to make the girl angry. She had a fierce temper. She pitched fights. She had so little control over her older siblings (they were all so much bigger than she was, all the time), and Ron knew it. They sometimes forgot she was littler, and couldn't do as much as they could. She hit. She punched. She cried. But she lost the fights, many of her siblings physically stronger than she was. And for the siblings who were not physically stronger, they were mentally stronger.

It wasn't that the child wasn't intelligent. She was, of course. Each of the children had intelligence. But she was fragile. Those bits of broken feelings could be shattered and glued together so many times, but pieces always must have gone missing. Shards that couldn't be placed back. Dust blown away.

She had so little control over her little life. It was hard for her to deal with.

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><p>Ron had prepared Etta for a very long time before she went to Hogwarts. He thought for sure she would be a Hufflepuff. She feared so much; she did so few things that really required much bravery that he didn't think she had any chance at being a Gryffindor. He had faith that she would be okay in a different house, but was so worried that she would end up feeling misplaced and left out compared to brilliant (yet Ravenclaw) Rose, and the two older Gryffindors.<p>

He told her that it was okay to be something but a Gryffindor, just like Rosie was a Ravenclaw. He found all sorts of wonderful people who weren't Gryffindors and described to her all the wonderful things that could become from being in Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.

He prepared her well, Ron thought. He thought that he did everything right, and made sure that the blow would become less for her when the hat screamed something other than "Gryffindor!" when placed upon her red head.

However.

The guilt was unimaginable when the owl came with a letter bearing the news that Ettie was a Gryffindor after all.

He was shocked, and even for a while thought that it was possible that she was lying in order to make him happy. Letters from the other children came in as well, and he realized that she truly did get placed into Gryffindor. He realized that it was something she needed. A place with so many brave people, who would all come together to make her more brave.

"I'm sorry it wasn't what you expected of me," she had written, even though Ron had told her so many times there was only a need to apologize if she had actually done something wrong.

Ron had had so much doubt in the girl, and he knew she knew it.

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><p><strong>AN: Long time no write! Thought I would pick this story back up, see if I still enjoy writing it. I got half way, so I figured it is only fair if I keep going. I feel an itch to write this time of year, I think. Etta is the bottom right of the "story cover" picture, and the far right of the full picture, which you can access on my profile. I'd like some reviews in order for me to keep writing. They, of course, mean a lot! Thanks a lot for the ones I got with this story last year. I certainly will continue the story if abundant reviews are had. **

**Two more characters left, and then a closing chapter. The twins remain. "Mona" is first, then "Hap." **


	6. Mona

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><p><strong>Mona<strong>

Ramona Artura Weasley. March 2014.

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><p>Ramona was loud. She was so loud. Oh how she kept everyone up from the moment she was born – screaming and hollering and red at the face, while her twin slept through it all.<p>

Mona was a sick child - because of this it might be default that she get the shortest end of the stick. Because of this, she got an immense amount of attention from her parents, who were always shuffling her to and from doctors, pushing terribly tasting potions into her mouth.

It was hard to say exactly what was wrong with her. The healers even were unable to always give her a correct diagnosis. It was an autoimmune disorder, for the most part. Her immune system had trouble functioning, and when it needed to fight off any incoming illness, it would end up sabotaging itself. Every sniffle caught from another child left her horrifyingly ill for weeks.

She learned to be loud. She learned to feel pain and feel sick and feel uncomfortable. She learned to let other do things to her without her permission, with the unclear and hazy intent to make her feel better.

Ron knew that she resented this, and wished there was a way she could have been healthier. However, in a way, it was her constant illness and constant pain that gave her life.

See, to know how to persist with constant illness is a noble task for a small child. It also was reason to celebrate whenever she did not feel the constant illness. This made her incredibly loud and incredibly alive whenever she felt well enough to do so. It made her want to jump and dance and sing and play. New tasks were an adventure to be welcomed, each milestone a reason to be grateful to keep moving. Her spirit was strong and free.

However, it also made her tough. It made her stubborn.

In a paradoxical reaction to these (sometimes) positive qualities, it made her resentful. She hated the Healers that were in the pursuit to make her feel healthy. She complained about the tiniest little pieces of her life, all of the daily hassles she was faced with. Ron thought that she was inconvenienced so often as a small child, that it almost filled an allotted amount of inconvenience in her existence. Her quota was full, perhaps. Every small thing that followed was overkill and overfilled her.

"It's a good thing we can call her Mona," Rose muttered, once, being witty rather than rude, "She moans about everything."

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><p>So, Mona was loud. She was loud when she was mad, and loud when she was happy. She even spoke in her sleep.<p>

The balance of energy was difficult to contain for the girl's parents. Even when she was sick and unable to feel well enough to act upon her energy, it was still there, bottled inside her.

She always wanted to go on adventures – go places, see things, learn about them. In her sickest days, Hermione tried to turn her fascination in these things into a fascination about books. She was no quiet bookworm, such as how Rose operated, however. She was loud in her reading, preferring any exciting story to be read aloud and reacted to. She wound find an exciting piece of information in a story and scream of how wonderful it was – not for the attention, as she was not the sort to crave extra attention – but simply because she needed to share it with the world around her, needed to hear her own voice declaring something in order to make sure she knew of it herself.

Mona was terrible in places where it was a courtesy to be quiet. Despite her sometimes fragile body, her voice simply had a sort of strength to it, her quietest of whispers floated down hallways and through halls. She could never stay quiet and stay still in classrooms. A fidgeter, a mumbler, bursting with all the pentup energy she wasn't able to release while sitting in hospital bets, she had many a detention at Hogwarts.

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><p>To make matters worse, she was a daredevil.<p>

Once, Ron arrived home, where all of his children were supposed to be entertaining themselves, to see Ramona on the roof of the house after crawling out her window. He apparated into the yard (he never apparated into the house – too many things perpetually moving around and no real safe place, too easy to hurt himself) the moment she began to fall. An "Arresto Momentum," saved the day and her life then, but she was not so lucky other times, and Hermione then made sure to keep around the potion that mended broken bones at all times.

Her penchant for dangerous situations did not simmer down as she got older. Ron had never seen a Gryffindor with so little common sense. Most of her daring, nerve, and chivalry came mostly from adrenaline. "What were you thinking?" was possibly the most comment phrase spoken to the girl.

She became a Quidditch star for this. A chaser. She loved it. She was fast and furious. Her only shortcoming turned out to be her inability to be a true team player. She did not try to hog the quaffle or try to appear better or more impressive than the others. She just didn't fully understand how to interact with others. She learned, as she went on, but it was a methodic learning. She did not learn how to interact with others, but she did learn how to interact with Quidditch players.

Ron always thought it was strange to be one of six children and not learn how to act as part of a group. He didn't understand it.

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><p>The thing that separated her from Ruby, that made them wholly different people despite both being overwhelmingly loud and boisterous, would be the way Romona closed herself off to others. She, despite being loud and crazy and dangerous, acted on her own volition, without regard for others. Though the sound of her voice was her favorite thing in the world (or at least her siblings would say so), she did not talk to others about her life – share secret with her friends and siblings, or even try to egg them on and start rows, or try to make others laugh. It did, perhaps, come accidentally that she created laughter and the occasional argument, but only because her wit and charm came naturally in her mannerisms. But she did not connect with others on purpose. She resisted it, stubborn to the core, not listening to others for advice. She spoke to empty rooms for advice much more than she would speak to anyone else.<p>

It wasn't that she was self centered, or that she thought she was better than others. Nothing like that all. She just didn't need others. She didn't utilize their potential. She didn't rely on anyone or anything. She relied on herself.

Ron wondered if she would ever be able to make any friends. If she would ever be able to follow rules. If there was a reason for her inability to connect.

There were multiple times – even from her first few days of life when she came down with an infection that left her unable to breath on her own (the only time she was ever truly quiet) – when Ron and Hermione were forced to think of the possibility that Mona would not live.

Once, when Ramona was six years old and declining quickly, Ron drafted a eulogy, and they looked at caskets much too small to make sense, and Hermione couldn't bear to continue.

Ron wondered if maybe this was the cause. That she spent so much of her life at the mercy of a faceless illness, that she was unable other things as a big deal. Big issues for healthy people were just grains in the sand of her life – even things that were truly big deals, despite that she moaned about minor inconveniences so often, she did not truly see in the same light. Perhaps she was a daredevil because she craved control her illnesses wouldn't allow her to have and wanted adventures to see things that her illness wouldn't allow her to have. She couldn't connect with people she met because they lived in a world so much differently than hers – one not plagued with the fear of death coming knocking at any moment.

Most of all, she did not want to be treated as delicate or fragile, something to be worried about breaking.

Although her illness reared its ugly head less and less as she got older, the emotional turmoil it left in its path never did fully leave. Ron, all the king's horses, all the king's men, and all the Healers at St. Mungo's couldn't put Mona together again.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>Hello everyone! Took long enough, but finally wrote the second to last child's chapter. Only one more to go. As always, the picture of the children is available on my profile. In the cover photo for this story, Ramona is the child on the left in the bottom row. The second son, followed by a wrap up chapter, are going to follow this one. Reviews, as always, are loved dearly.<br>**


	7. Hap

**.**

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><p><strong>Hap.<strong>

Henry Ronald. March 2014.

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><p>Henry was an infinitely easy child when compared to his twin, who did nothing but scream and fall ill and fall hurt. Ron worried, however, that with Mona's ranting and raving and illnesses, that Henry sometimes fell in the cracks, and this was what gave him the shortest piece of the stick.<p>

The little boy earned his nickname because of the comparison to his sister, who was only seven minutes his senior. Henry turned to Happy Henry, which eventually boiled down to simply "Hap."

While his sister was causing all sorts of issues, he was helping to lighten the burden with his soft, quiet, and gentle demeanor – always ready and able to give a snuggle and a smile. While his twin sister was often in her dream world of adventures and risks, Henry was shrewdly aware of the emotions of others, always valuing forming deep connections with those who were important to him.

His empathy was acute. He could notice a twinge of sadness in one with the thickest of facades. Though Hap wasn't one to pry about the situation, or one to attempt to hero his way in and save the day, he was one to try to make it better just by being present.

Hermione was always grateful for his son's intuition. Sometimes, she felt overrun by the hustle and bustle of her gaggle of children. Henry realized this, and perhaps was the child who realized this the most, as he was given the perspective of being born the very last, being able to always look up at the rest of his family. In a way, it made Hermione feel better to have at least one of her children know and understand – the kind of quiet understanding that just a touch of eye contact could convey, starting even when Henry was still quite small.

He was an old soul, they always thought. He saw people like he had known them all before.

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><p>Ron and Hermione were not sure if they could have gotten through the bad moments with the incredibly sick Ramona without Henry. He always seemed to know what was going on, somehow being able to feel the levels of sadness his parents were holding within them. He did not speak of it to them, but he made sure that he was always around for them, even at such a young age.<p>

From seeing one twin lose another in the case of his brothers, Ron wondered what Henry would be like without his Ramona. They were a team, the two of them, despite their extreme differences, and they would feel an indescribable bond to each other for the rest of their lives. They were independent individuals, absolutely -– much less congruent than than Fred and George had been. But still, Ron couldn't bear the thought of them getting separated if the illness took her. They were siblings, just as the rest of the children were their siblings.

But they were something else, too.

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><p>Despite Mona's illness and anger and stubbornness – growing up came easily to her when she was not being held back. She enjoyed every adventure, relished new situations, wanted to find more and more.<p>

But, despite his nickname, somehow, growing up came harder for Henry.

He was so sensitive, was the problem. His older brother was so big and strong and brave, and Hap, in comparison, never was any of these things.

It wasn't that he was afraid of everything like Etta was. He just had trouble getting adjusted to things. He needed to be eased into situations. Even as a small child, he eased himself into every milestone. He was late to crawl, late to walk, late to show his first signs of magic. Once he accomplished these things, he excelled. But it moved slowly. He needed to observe the world before he felt comfortable taking part in it.

But sometimes the world just moved too quickly for him. When this happened, his emotions were too much for him to handle.

The worst Ron could think of was when they moved homes. It was not far away from their old home, and in fact it was closer to their extended families than the last one. Yet, he stayed in his new bedroom huddled around his favorite objects from his old home for days, trying to pretend that nothing had changed.

And when he needed to adjust quickly to certain situations – big and little – he lost control. He could not make decisions quickly in any circumstance. Even just needing to decide what he wanted for lunch or what color pencil he wanted to draw with left to boy in tears, or throwing a fit, or yelling and insulting, or even physically attacking (or attempting to attack, such as the case with being the youngest child) one of his family members or friends. And when one of them fought back, this, too, was too much for his heart to bear.

This got worse due to his magic, as in these emotional outbursts, even when he was a strong wizard with impeccable control over his magic, he would be overcome and dizzily fire spells he wasn't in control over and would later regret.

Indeed, his overactive emotions were met with an overactive sense of guilt as well. He didn't mean to hurt someone's body or their feelings ever. He never intended to hurt a fly. In fact, oftentimes the emotional pain he caused himself when he hurt someone was twice as bad as the pain he inflicted on other people. It wasn't that he was ever angry with these people, really. But he was always just upset and frustrated with himself.

Ron hated seeing the turmoil it caused in his youngest child. Friendships were vastly important to him, but he was always at a subtle risk of losing them through his exploding emotions - and always at a major risk of tearing himself apart in the aftermath.

The boy felt everything, and he felt everything so strongly.

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><p>Henry's gentle heart gave him a love of animals of all sorts.<p>

He worked relentlessly to care for them, giving them giant habitats and giving them all of the time that he could. He had pets of his beloved owl, a rat (much to Ron's disturbance), a Crookshanks-like kneazle/cat (again, much to Ron's - and the rat's - disturbance) and a Puffskein, with a rotating cast of Augureys, Jarveys, Crups, Fire crabs, Fwoopers, Knarls, Nifflers, salamanders, Streelers and various creatures he assisted Hagrid with while at Hogwarts.

While it baffled Ron and Hermione, their son was so overjoyed by these animals that they couldn't even draw the line when Ron came home to find a grindylow in a large aquarium tank in his son's bedroom. Or when a Hippogriff (who the entire family actually ended up quite fond of) tied up outside.

He swore his creatures were always tame – and they were, but only with Henry. He had a way of turning even the most terrifying of animals into lovable pets. (Ron, however, refused to ever go near the grindylow).

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><p>Ron worried that Henry's gentle, delicate heart made him weak – not strong enough on the inside to have full control of himself.<p>

Unsurprising to the entire family, Hap was placed in Hufflepuff when he went to Hogwarts.

Ron still worried, of course, that Hap would feel inferior because of this, but his worries in this case were truly not necessary. Being a Hufflepuff was not a bad thing in Henry's eyes, as he valued the friendly, sweet, loving people he was surrounded by in his cozy common room.

Ron tried to imagine his little son as a Gryffindor and of course, he could not. Henry was much too humble and relaxed and unassuming to fit with the slightly cutthroat, always energetic tribe of Gryffinors. As a Gryffindor himself, Ron saw bravery and nerve as some of the best qualities to have, and sometimes had trouble realizing that he had a bias, and the qualities of his son were no better or worse than the qualities of any of his children.

But Ron wondered if the Hufflepuff within his son made him too kind, too empathetic. Could it be possible to be too connected to the feelings of others? Ron could never understand how he and his twin sister had become so different even after sharing a womb, having faults on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. While Mona had trouble connecting to anyone at all, Hap felt sympathy and pain for people who, in Ron's opinion, deserved the least sympathy of all.

There came a time were each Weasley and Potter child started hearing for detailed stories of their parents' past lives, their days at Hogwarts, the Wizarding War in which they became household names. There was one day where Henry heard a lot about Voldemort - more than he had ever heard before. Henry slowly and quietly slipped away from the stories Harry was telling to the group, and Ron followed him to the other room, assuming he felt disturbed and upset by the circumstances he was learning about.

"It isn't that," Hap said, tears pricking in his eyes (he had his mother's eyes), "I know I am supposed to hate Voldemort for everything he did. Because he killed Harry's parents. And tried to kill him. And started a war that killed so many people. And everything. I know I am supposed to hate all of it. And hate him for it."

The boy pretended to find a button on his jumper to be a fascinating thing, refusing to meet the eye of his father, before he continued, "But I can't help but just feel bad for him. How terrible do you have to be treated, in order to be so terrible? How awful must your life be in order to be so awful? I feel bad for him. I feel terrible. I know I'm not supposed to, but I can't help it."

Ron had never once thought of it like that before. Never would he have dared to feel sympathy for a man he had spent his teenage years both running from and fighting.

He didn't understand his son. And that hurt him most of all.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>And there you have it! The final Weasley. I think I developed characters more as I went along, so perhaps I might do more with these characters so I can go back and develop particularly Rose and Hugo more. I started so long ago that I probably have become a better writer. <strong>

**Perhaps I will do a oneshot series with these characters? I have grown to love them. If anyone would want to see that, let me know! Also let me know what characters you'd like to see featured most prominently. **

**I hope I made them all their own people. Although there is overlap between some of the kids (as there is with most siblings), I didn't want a cut and dry copy and paste of Ron and Hermione in any of these children, while there are certainly qualities from each, they also each have their own.**

**One more chapter left, just a bit of a wrap up.**


	8. The End

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><p><strong>The End. <strong>

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><p>Six children – each with portions of the "stick" they broke off and doled out to each child. None of them could possibly have had enough.<p>

Or perhaps not. Perhaps they each had some things to keep them above each other. To keep them their own persons.

Rose with her intelligence and her wit. Hugo with his protectiveness and his bravery. Ruby with her spunk and her joking. Harriet with her sweetness and her friendliness. Ramona with her stubbornness and her liveliness. Henry with his curiosity and his empathy.

Hermione was often concerned that Ron didn't believe his children were happy. They were, a thousand times over they were, only Ron had trouble believing it.

"Maybe," she told him, "you're focusing so much on wanting them to be happy, that you're unable to see that they're happy enough as they are."

Ron didn't have a response for that.

"Everyone has insecurities, Ron. Have you ever thought, for a moment, that possibly they would be even happier if you stopped focusing on why they shouldn't be?"

Nor that.

Six children – each perfect in their own ways, each flawed as well. Like any other person. Like Ron himself.

Perhaps, in the end, it was always Ron who received the shortest end of the stick.

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><p><strong>.<strong>

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><p><strong>And there you have it! The end! I might come out with a oneshot series, keep your eyes peeled. Might not be much, but I'm doing a lot of thinking especially for some reason about Ramona. Do you have a favorite character? Who is it? <strong>

**Leave me some last reviews, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks for those of you who have given me reviews!**


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